Sandal



Patented Oct. 30, 1945 UNITED STATES ATENT OFFICE 2 Claims.

This invention relates to sandals and particularly to sandals intended to be worn by fruit pickers, painters and others who in the ordinary course of employment must mount and remain standing upon ladders for substantial periods of time.

In the harvesting of fruit from trees by hand it is conventional practice to provide each picker with a ladder to enable him to climb and thus bring the fruit within reach. Customarily also each picker is provided with a basket, bag or sack which he carries and in which he continues to deposit the picked fruit until the bag is loaded, whereupon the picker descends, empties'the bag and reascends the ladder for a fresh load. The weight of the picker mounted upon a ladder is ordinarily transmitted to a ladder rung through the pickers shoes and in the general case the picker will stand upon the ladder in such manner that his insteps directly overlie the ladder rung upon which he is immediately standing.-

Hence the area of that portion of the sole of each of the pickers shoes which engages the ladder rung is very small and the pressure upon the pickers insteps is concentrated and unrelieved, a condition quite different from that which obtains when the pickers feet rest upon level ground. When to the weight of the picker there must be added the weight of a quantity of fruit, for instance, a bag or sack of oranges, the concentrated load upon the pickers insteps is substantial and soon produces fatigue, sometimes severe pains which render it impossible for the fruit picker to proceed. The pickers shoes are likewise subjected to excessive wear in the instep and it is found that an orange picker, for instance, will wear out shoes very rapidly when he does any substantial amount of work upon ladders. Some fruit pickers will wear out as many as four pairs of shoes in a relatively short season, due almost entirely to the excessive strains imposed on the leather and seams as a result of repeatedly mounting and standing upon ladders. It is the purpose of the present invention to provide means whereby injury to both feet and shoes of a picker or painter, due to ladder climbing, may be wholly avoided.

The invention contemplates the provision of a shoe attachment in the nature of a sandal. This sandal comprises a sole member which is preferably coextensive in area with the undersurface of the wearers shoe, including the heel, the sole member being rigid or substantially rigid so as to distribute the wearers weight over the entire area of the sole of his foot, and provided with means on its underside to engage a ladder rung or the like in such manner that the sandal may not slip.

Preferably the stiif or rigid sole member is fabricated of metal, such as sheet steel, and preferably also the means projecting from the underside of the sandal is in the nature of a serpentine ribbon of steel rigidly attached to the sole member. The serpentine ribbon presents a series of notches spaced longitudinally of the sandal so that its wearer may cause the same to interlock with a ladder rung at various points along the length of the sole. The spaced projections provided by the serpentine strip taper outwardly from the sole so as to minimize the resistance to ground penetration.

It will be appreciated that an instrumentality of the character described will be most satisfactory if so designed that it may not only be ef-' fectively used for the stated purpose when the wearer mounts a ladder, but which may also be freely worn when the wearer is upon the ground, An object of the invention is to provide a sandal which may be so worn and which not only permits the wearer to walk freely across an orchard without removing the sandals but facilitates the work of the fruit picker in moving his ladder from place to, place. Som of the ladders employed by orange pickers for instance are forty feet in length and the picker of necessity must move the ladder very frequently in picking the fruit from a number of trees. Where his sandals are provided with ladder rung-engaging means designed in such manner as to freely penetrate into the ground upon whichthe picker walks, thus insuring that he will not slip, he may much more easily raise and maneuver the ladder upon which he must stand to reach the fruit to be picked. The sandal contemplated by the present invention is thus extremely helpful to a painter or fruit picker not only when the picker is mounted upon a ladder, but also when he is on the ground and is merely manipulating his ladder from one point of vantage to another.

In designing the sandal for various specific purposes minor changes may be made without departure from the invention. In every case, however, the sandal will include a longitudinally extending rigid or nearly rigid sole together with means associated with the sole for interlocking with some such object as a ladder rung. Conventional devices for securing the sandal to the foot of the worker may be employed.

In the accompanying drawing one form of the invention is illustrated by way of example.

Figure 1 is a side elevation of the sandal, showing the means for attaching the same to the wearers foot;

Figure 2 is a section on line 2-2 of Figure l; and

Figure 3 is a bottom plan view of the sandal.

The sandal comprisesessentially a generally flat sole member which I preferably fabricate of sheet steel and having the general shape of the human foot, as may be observed from Figure 3. At the heel end of the sole member ID is provided an upstanding heel guide or locating flange H to receive the heel of the wearers shoe and definately position it on the upper surface of member ID. The heel guard or flange Il may be se-- cured to the sole plate I by any suitable means, as by welding or riveting. It is provided with slots 12 for the reception of a strap l3 whi'ch is adapted to pass over the wearers foot and .to hold the sandal securely to the foot. "Toward the toe of the sandalthere is 'a. further: foot encircling leather retaining-strap 15. Thisstrap has a central portion which underlies ana-nchoring member l6 WhichwiS secured -to .theundersurface of the-sole I0. The anchoring'member I6 comprises a metallie-stripthe'upperssurface of which engages the undersurfaceuoflthe sole and the ends 16a and- I-Bb o'fwhichproject upwardly and are provided withimeans'nfortpositively securing the strap 1 to members :1 Git-mid 16b. The straps -l3 and-45 may be replaced-by othersuitable securingmeans whereby the sandal may be attached to the'wearers foot.

Extending longitudinally. ot'the solenand -secured rigidly thereto is a serpentine. strip-=20. This strip is relativelynarrow and is connected to member Ill at-spaced points by meansofzrivets 22, welds; orthe like. The-severahspaced-pmj'ections 'thus formedimay"readily penetrate the such extent that the sole ID of the sandal will engage its upper surface.

Any one of the several ladder rung-receiving notches may be actually used by the wearer as a rung-receiving notch. In Figure 1 of the drawing a ladder rung is diagrammatically shown at 2| and it will be seen that this rung directly underlies the instep of the wearer. Generally the foot of the wearer will be most comfortable when .the rung 2| directly. underlies his instep, but it is possible for the wearer to shift his sandal transversely of any rung upon which he is standing at any time so a to cause the rung to enter one of the other notches provided by the 'of ascending and descending ladders it is highly desirable 'to have a plurality of these ladder rung-engaging notches.

While I prefer to fabricate the sandal of metal such'as sheetsteel it maybe fabricated of other material and by cther processes. Conveniently, it may be fashioned? by casting, and fabricated of aluminum or other light metal; in which event the several projections which define the-ladder rung-engaging notches may be cast integral with the sole l0. Otherminorchangesmay beamade to suit conditions and to fill the needsu-ofzindividual wearers.

Having thus described the inventiongwhat-is claimed as'new and desired to 'bG SBCU'lEBd'KbY Letters Patent is:

1. A sandal-comprising. a rigidsole and-means projecting downwardly "therefromto interlock with a ladder-rung-or the like; saidtmeanscomprising a serpentine: strip of-metal'attached' to the'sole at a plurality ofpoihts and providin a" plurality of ladder rung-receiving recesses spaced longitudinally of-the sole.

- 2'.- The *sandal described. in claim: L in. which said strip is relatively narrow and the'portions thereof defining the rung receiving notches taper downwardly from the sole to facilitate: ground penetration.

JOHN: B: W'INGFIELD. 

